


Hunting Trip

by Enigel



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-09
Updated: 2007-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-02 02:43:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enigel/pseuds/Enigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Daniel became "Sunshine".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunting Trip

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Chase_acow in the SG_rarepairings ficathon. A world of thanks to Mimm and Mouse for the beta help!

Cameron should have known from the get-go that things would not go smoothly. First clue was that they were all gathered in the briefing room around one of Bill Lee's ideas.

"Now, Bill here," Sam motioned to Dr. Lee, "has developed a detector which can spot a Goa'uld within a range of sixty feet." She seemed amazed that Dr. Lee had even thought of that, much less come up with the device on his own. "It is _fairly_ inconspicuous," she eyed the contraption dubiously, "and if he's right we should be able to enter the scene, spot the Goa'uld and remove him without too much fuss."

"'They' should be able to do this, Colonel."

"Pardon me, sir?"

General Landry nodded a greeting to the rest of the people.

"Colonel, I have other plans for you. I need you to work on an Area 51 project. I'll brief you on the details after you're done here."

"Yes, sir. I was just about to explain how this works to Colonel Mitchell and Dr. Jackson. Thirty minutes should be enough."

"Good. Proceed with that, Colonel, and I'll see you in my office in 45 minutes."

The general left, and Cameron was left with the terrifying prospect of half an hour's worth of technobabble.

* * *

"...and this is how the device detects the Goa'uld, sends out the coordinates and allows us to beam them out of there safely, straight into custody. Any questions?"

Cameron realized he didn't have any questions, because he'd been tuning out pretty much the whole explanation. He caught Jackson's look and said aloud: "Nope, no questions, everything's clear. We blend in, try to sniff out any connections with the Trust, spot the snakehead, remove him. So, when do we fly?"

Sam looked at him indulgently, a little resigned disappointment showing through.

"You don't fly. There's nowhere to fly to. You drive."

"Can't we take a chopper or something?"

It was Jackson's turn to smile smugly at him.

"You really haven't been listening, have you? The key word is 'undercover'."

He even air-quoted the word at him. Cameron hated when other people did that.

"So what," he grumbled, "can't we be undercover as FBI agents or something? Something with choppers?"

* * *

The trip was mostly uneventful. Cameron drove, Jackson dozed off; Jackson drove, Cameron jibed about his driving, made random remarks about the places they passed, emitted the occasional "Are we there yet?" - just the usual, to keep the driver from falling asleep.

Cameron realized their little road trip had somehow become a sort of holiday in his head. He frowned. Goa'ulds were never holiday. Except, weren't they supposed to be extinct? It was like, like hunting dinosaurs.

He shared this with Jackson and was rewarded with an askance, dry look.

Right. Never extinct enough.

That seemed to have dealt a fatal blow to the conversation, and Cameron was left to pretending to sleep while staring at Jackson. He'd really made an effort to blend in with the nondescript crowd that populates the roads and gas stations of the highways. Denim jacket, naturally aged, and a checkered shirt that Cameron found ugly, but which spoke of travels and past days. It made him regret they didn't get to see each other out of uniform more often. There were enough barriers and walls to getting to know the man as it was.

* * *

They reached the town by evening and did their best to blend in with the dusty surroundings, two tired travelers from nowhere in particular, the little town of Cobweb, Colorado an entirely random stop on their way to somewhere else.

The first surprise was when Dr. Lee's Goa'uld sniffer seemed to be completely confused and gave off strange readings as soon as they entered the main street. Jackson was the first to figure out that they had wrongfully assumed a single snakehead, and it hadn't been calibrated for more.

"Don't you wish you'd have taken Bill with us, Mitchell?" Daniel asked lightly.

"No. I just wish he'd, okay, _we_'d have thought of this earlier."

"We can figure it out," Daniel said full of a confidence that Cameron failed to feel. "Tomorrow, after we get some sleep. That coffee hasn't done anything, I think they slipped us some decaf."

Cameron raised his eyebrows. If Dr. All-nighter Jackson was tired, who was he to oppose? He wasn't sleepy in the slightest, although he felt a deep tiredness in his bones. He could sense an impending insomnia.

* * *

Jackson mumbled something that could have passed off as "G'night" and really soon afterwards his breath stilled to a regular puff. Cameron stared for a while then shook himself and tried to sleep too, but he could feel that wouldn't happen. That coffee must have been really damn strong. He turned and a spring in the mattress zinged loudly and discordantly.

Jackson was still sleeping peacefully, and that just wasn't fair. Maybe it wasn't an urban legend, and Jackson really could sleep through anything. What if they were attacked in their sleep? It could happen.

Cameron got up and walked softly to the nightstand. He grabbed a book - the only book in the room, The Book - tried not to stop and think of what his grandma would say, and dropped it heavily on the floor.

He'd expected Jackson to sit up, blinking, or mumble in his sleep and turn on his other side. He wouldn't have put it past him to keep sleeping, or, alternatively, admit he'd been awake the whole time. What he certainly hadn't expected was to find himself staring at the barrel of a gun, and yet that's what he was suddenly doing. At the other end of the gun were a determined face and alert, if somewhat squinty, grey-blue eyes.

Cameron's breath stopped for just a bit. Then Jackson noticed the lack of an actual aggressive intruder, looked at the gun in his hand with an ambiguously apologetic smile and had the grace to look silly and bashful, and all... Jacksony, and Cameron could breathe again.

"That's what you get for messing up with the Holy Book, Cam," he could hear his grandma's chiding in his head.

"What was that for?" Daniel's voice was groggier than his looks.

"A test," improvised Cameron. "A field test of, um, readiness under attack."

"A test? So how did I do?" Daniel was smiling innocently.

"_I_ failed," thought Cameron, but out loud he said "Great. Almost blew my head off."

"Did not."

"Did... All right, did not. Now let's get back to sleep."

Daniel stared at him for a moment, opened his mouth as if to say something, then shrugged and lay back.

Cameron tried, he really did. But that's the trouble with insomnia, you can't just will yourself to sleep, and the harder you try, the more awake you feel. He spent some good minutes - five or thirty, it was the same - suspecting Jackson of cheating. Who falls asleep so damn fast, anyway? So he stared some more, trying to catch any signs of pretense, but all he could see was the regular rise and fall of his chest, the closed eyes, mouth slightly slack.

Cameron turned away. He didn't like sleeping on his left side anyway.

After ten minutes (or thirty, or forty) the silence got deafening and his back was numb and he had a cramp in his right hip, so he sat up and sighed.

"You know," Daniel said conversationally, "if you can't sleep you could just say so."

Cameron startled, but the darkness swallowed his surprise.

"Guess I could, at that."

He stood and stretched.

"You," he pointed his finger at Daniel, "are very good at faking sleep."

"You get captured often enough, it becomes a survival skill." Daniel smiled with exaggerated cheer. Cameron heard it so well, he could almost see it.

"Anyway, you don't have to suffer through it alone. We could find something to do."

"Such as?"

"Well, I could tell you all I can remember about Mesopotamian cosmogony myths and how they compare to the other cosmogonies of the surrounding people."

"That could actually be interesting, so it might not help."

A car passed through the parking lot and its lights rolled slowly across the ceiling and wall, briefly bathing Daniel's face in a pale glow, from left to right.

"Or we could find something else to talk about."

"Such as?"

"Such as why you can't sleep."

"I can sleep. I can't sleep around you."

Insomnia was really doing a number on Cameron, he decided, biting his tongue. He hadn't meant to say that.

Daniel smiled, and this time the smile reminded Cameron of the man who'd pointed the gun at him an hour (two? three?) ago.

"I'm going to take that as a compliment. I mean, it's either that or I'd have to find another room."

"No! Jackson, I didn't mean..."

"Of course not," said Jackson lying back and pulling the bed sheet over his head. "You're the one with the problem, you find another room."

Cameron blinked.

Jackson peered from under the blanket.

"If you _really_ want to sleep, that is."

Cameron thought as fast as exhaustion allowed him.

"You know what? Sleep is overrated. Let's hear it for alternate ideas."

Jackson rummaged in his duffel bag.

"I have just the thing," he said and brandished a battered looking Scrabble box. "Mind games."

'It's what we've been playing all along,' thought Cameron.

Daniel hopped into bed with him. They were both fast asleep before the fourth turn.

* * *

The morning didn't allow Cameron to dwell too much on the previous night's happenings. It felt like the day was a different country, he thought, he could almost push the night back to the dream drawer, and they were kept busy by the practical purpose of their journey.

Surprisingly enough for Cameron, they figured out the settings for Dr. Lee's Magic Goa'uld Sniffer, as Cameron had taken to calling it, and they pinpointed the likely targets. They were, however, in for a third surprise.

"Don't you understand? You're free of the parasite! We can remove it with no ill effects!" Cameron shouted. Other than exposure to megalomaniac paranoia, he thought bitterly while diving behind a table, away from the ensuing shots.

"It's not going to reverse the healing it did for your body, if this was your deal with it!" yelled Daniel from behind the other table.

More gunfire answered, and then the satisfying "click!" of a blank shot and empty clipboard.

Cameron tackled the temporary de-Goa'uldified host and found himself engaged in combat, until the struggling man suddenly stopped.

Cameron peered around, into the face of a grinning townsman dressed as a hunter. He froze, trying to remember just how many classified things he'd just let escape.

"One of those crazy psycho conspiracy theorists, eh?" the man said. "Nothing but trouble. Don't worry, he's just asleep," the man patted his gun, and Cameron realized with a certain dizziness that the unknown hunter had put a healthy dose of tranquillizers in their soon-to-awaken-again Goa'uld. Did folks really run around with that kind of thing?

"Thank you for your help," Jackson said heartily. "You are a good citizen."

"You boys need any more help?" the man looked reluctant to abandon what was probably the most interesting thing to have happened to his town in years.

"No, we have everything under control," said Cameron, hoping he didn't just jinx himself. "Come on, Jackson, time to leave while we're ahead," Cameron said, although he didn't feel much ahead of anything in particular. On the contrary, it felt like the whole world was rushing past him and he just failed to see the clues.

The hunter hovered around until they had both hosts secured in the car, and reluctantly left when he convinced himself that this had been it for the day's entertainment, waving his rifle as a goodbye sign. Cameron was so relieved to get out of there, he choked the car's engine on his first attempt to start it.

* * *

They had to get out of town before using Asgard technology to beam the prisoners into their holding cells, and a rather tense half an hour passed before he and Jackson were alone in the car again. In the clear light of the day, no Scrabble board in sight, he felt like he was back to square one.

Cameron gripped the steering wheel.

"Hey, Jackson, I've been thinking. Yeah, I know what you're going to say, but it happens."

"I wasn't going to say anything."

Daniel had a calm, no-nonsense tone, and Cameron understood that he wasn't going to let him play his usual game.

"I've been thinking about a real trip. You know, you and me and my car, no glowy-eyed barmen or blinking thingamajigs other than a cell phone which would complain about having no signal. A holiday."

"And this idea just came to you out of the blue?"

"Yep." No truth like a good lie either, he thought.

Daniel looked right through him.

Cameron avoided to look directly at Jackson. It was all so different by the harsh light of the day.

"All right. Last night's... cure for insomnia gave me the idea for that."

Daniel's mouth curved in a mischievous grin.

"It's a date," he said.

Fine. A date. He could call it that, and the sky wouldn't fall. In fact, it was shaping to be a beautiful day.

* * *

Jackson was silent for some more time after that, and seeing how still he sat, with his eyes closed, Cameron could have sworn he was sleeping, except now he knew better. Or thought he did, he couldn't be sure.

They were nearing a gas station, and it was Jackson's turn to drive. He yawned and stretched, and his shirt opened at the collar. He looked at Cameron through squinting eyes.

"You know, this drive is going to be just as long on the way back as it was on the way there, and twice less interesting. I hate retracing my steps."

Cameron kept his voice neuter: "So?"

"So do you have to be back today? I know this place we could stay overnight, a sort of refuge cabin. Not quite a hotel, but quiet and nice. It's a detour, but you might find it worth it."

He was looking at Cameron just like he had the previous night, and Cameron felt projected on a deserted chess board, the two white knights playing a game of their own.

He spoke slowly, just in case the board was mined.

"You mean like a little holiday?"

Daniel's small smiles were as frustrating as ever. He couldn't have enough of them.

"Yeah, something like that."

Field command was all about instant decisions.

"Sure. We'll just... inform the SGC we're investigating another possible snake-sighting and we'll be back tomorrow."

* * *

The little cabin turned out to be more on the side of little than cabin, but Jackson was right, it was... nice.

Cameron assessed the perimeter, as it were, and noticed one small room, with a disproportionately large door and a mattress that was just the right size.

Daniel dropped his bag on the floor and stretched. The room was small enough that his hands touched the ceiling.

"Ah, the bare basics of human comfort and nothing in excess. A nice, quiet room, powerbars and a game of Scrabble."

He threw himself on the mattress and closed his eyes, and Cameron had a sudden moment of doubt. What if Jackson would just play Scrabble until they got tired, and then politely bid him good night? He _would_ do that, he thought, he had just the brand of evil.

But then Daniel opened his eyes and no one in their right mind ever smirked like that when unpacking a mini-Scrabble board and vaguely chocolate-tasting protein, so Cameron could go back to the other, deeper doubt, that had been thrumming low in his chest ever since they'd started on their detour and that coiled around his heart like anticipation, like the moment before take-off.

They had barely gotten through the first turns (all won by Jackson, which meant he was playing fair), when they heard a soft pattering sound on the roof. Cameron didn't even have time to worry about its source, because it soon grew and identified itself as rain, and before you could say "Mesopotamia", which was really damn fast if you were Jackson, it became a rapping fury of nature. It was a cold, petty rain, and they knew that for a fact because whatever the refuge was meant to shelter from, it hadn't been water from the skies.

Jackson cast a wistful glance at the ceiling.

"Ah, that was definitely not part of the plan."

"Yeah, how about that? How come it never goes according to the plan?"

"It's half of SG-1 on holiday, Mitchell. _Of course_ it doesn't go as planned," Daniel's voice rang with the wistful resignation that only years of experience could bring, and Cameron could suddenly feel the weight of all those hours and minutes of SG-1's collective life that were not in any files he could have read.

He liked to feel part of the team because he'd read, he thought, all about them, and then there were little things like this one that reminded him he was forever looking in from the outside. The lines had blurred, but he could still feel them. But Jackson had called them half of SG-1, had included him without hesitation, and that brought a warmth that had nothing to do with the blanket they'd dragged over themselves.

Cameron hesitated, then said, gesturing at the room:

"You know, that wasn't the way I had it planned either."

He didn't mean the rain, and Jackson must have known it, because he looked at him challengingly.

"And do you just have to plan everything?"

"God, no. I'm leading," Cameron drawled the word, "_you_ people. If I were a control freak I'd have gone mental in about two weeks flat."

Daniel smiled. It was a genuinely amused smile, just that little bit on the side of nostalgic.

"Good. Because I feel like I might have become one over the years. Not much, you know, just..." and he flicked his fingers vaguely. "All thing change," he said, looking Cameron in the eyes, and Cameron understood that their being there now was Jackson's way of playing it, whatever "it" was, on his terms. Fine. He could do that.

The rain was heaviest over the mattress side of the room, and Jackson jumped to his feet, swearing. Cameron followed, and they were standing by the door, Cameron still clutching the blanket over both their heads.

As the rain insinuated itself in the room, rapping over bags and blanket, Jackson moved closer to him.

"I hate wet."

"I hate wet and cold," added Cameron.

"We could stay in the car," Daniel pointed out. "It would be dry."

"Yeah, we could play Scrabble until the flashlight ran out of batteries, or you could tell me that story about the cosmo-whatsits of Mesopotamia after all."

"And then we could flip a coin to see who sleeps in the back seat."

You can't run the plane on the track forever. Time for the take-off, Mitchell.

"Or," Cameron said, "we could not sleep at all."

Daniel smiled the mother of all wicked smiles.

"Yeah, wasn't really planning on that."

Without any more preamble Jackson grabbed his head between his hands and kissed him, and Cameron dropped the blanket and gripped Jackson's arms to pull him closer. As he felt Jackson's body press against his own, the want struck him like a wave of hot and trembling and rush, and he wasn't going to hold back anything anymore. It didn't matter how they'd gotten here, all that mattered was Daniel's arms pushing him against the door, the rasp of stubble on Cameron's neck, and getting their clothes off as soon as possible.

Cameron fumbled with the buttons of Daniel's shirt until all were open but one, so he tugged hard at it and it popped open with a soft ripping sound. He could feel Jackson smile at that, and then a small bite on the side of his neck answered his own gesture.

Daniel's hands skimmed over his chest briefly before removing Cameron's t-shirt, and then returned to map and press and tease. Then his hands went on to fumble with the zip of his jeans, and something not unlike panic grabbed Cameron, and weren't they moving too fast? But Jackson licked a wet trail on his neck and across his chest, closing his lips over a nipple, and suddenly he wasn't near close enough or moving fast enough.

Cameron wanted to get one thing certain, so he cupped Daniel's face in his hands and kissed him slower but no less firmly, his tongue pushing in and licking. His eyes never left Daniel's face, while Daniel's eyes were closed, and Cameron's chest tightened, something his grandma once told him flitting across his mind. "There's always one who does the loving and one who lets himself be loved, and you can always tell if the girl has her eyes closed when you kiss her, Cam." Then Daniel squeezed him tight, one hand on the nape of his neck and the other around his waist and going southwards, and Jackson was not a girl, and all that was a load of nonsense anyway.

Cameron didn't exactly have a plan, he tended to just go with the flow, but Jackson seemed to know exactly what he wanted. After one more gentle nibble at Cameron's lips he began to lick his way down Cameron's chest again. There was a confidence in his movements that made Cameron dizzy to think about, then diluted all thought altogether in a blur of arousal, as he stood panting, pants around his ankles and vision swimming; he wanted it never to end and he wanted to come right then, but Jackson had his own plan and his rhythm, so Cameron braced himself against the rough surface of the door and let himself be teased, sucked and licked; rain had found their corner at last, but the cool droplets did nothing but refresh his skin so he could heat up again under Jackson's hands and mouth.

He opened his eyes just as Daniel looked up, and the glint of desire and control he saw was enough to tip the balance and what started out as a plea came out as a warning, "now!" and he forced himself to keep his eyes on Jackson the whole time, not give in to the haze of satisfied lust.

"I know," said Daniel's look, "_I_ made it happen, just when _I_ wanted to." Jackson had always been good at meaningful looks, as long as you were on the same wavelength, and Cameron liked to think they finally were. So much control turned him on as much as it made Cameron want to break it, so he pulled Daniel up and dropped to his knees to do what he'd fantasized about doing for what felt like months.

Daniel's eyes were closed and rain was falling on his face. 'He hates wet,' Cameron remembered through the haze of lust, but Daniel didn't seem to care about that right then, as he was leaning back against the door, glistening with sweat and rain water, mouth open to allow heavy breathing through.

Some time ago he'd slapped a badge on Jackson's shoulder; the badge said "SG-1" but what he'd wished it to mean was "mine", and now his hands gripping Jackson's hips wanted to make the same claim. That gesture had been a jump in the dark, but now, as Daniel's fingers went to stroke through Cameron's hair gentler and with more control than he'd thought possible given the way he was pushing into Cameron's mouth, Cameron felt he'd been right, and it felt good, as good as Daniel's moans and shuddering breath as he came.

* * *

They slept in the car after all, and Cameron generously offered Daniel the back seat. He woke up with one foot stuck in the steering wheel, a hand on the floor, all his muscles cramped, and feeling happier than he'd had in ages.

"Good morning, sunshine!" Cameron said first thing in the morning, just to see the expression on Daniel's face. Jackson threw a sock at him halfheartedly, and missed.

"Mornin'. Coffee," Daniel mumbled, and Cameron smiled widely and revealed the thermos he'd been hiding behind his back, and Daniel's face did lighten up at that.

"You don't bring me flowers," he quoted, grabbing the bottle to gulp down greedily, smiling from the corners of his mouth.

The sky was still overcast, but what did it know? It was a bright and sunny day for Cameron.


End file.
